The present invention relates to a diaper that has a front part, a rear part and an intermediate crotch part and an absorbent body or pad which extends in the longitudinal direction of the diaper from the rear part thereof, through the crotch part and into the front part and which is spaced from the end-edge of said rear part and/or said front part.
It is not always possible to immediately discard used and dirty diapers, which makes it necessary to keep the diapers about one""s person in certain cases, e.g. on a baby carriage or perambulator, until a convenient place for discarding the diapers can be found. Consequently, in order to enable such diapers to be handled hygienically, it is desirable that the diapers can be sealed after use.
This problem has been solved traditionally, by also using the diaper fastener tabs to close and seal a dirty diaper. One drawback with this solution is that the adhesive strength of such tabs, or tapes, of a used diaper is often insufficient to securely seal the diaper, due to the presence of baby powder, some other type of powder, or because parts of the outer sheet of the diaper have fastened to the adhesive coating of the tape and therewith impaired its adhesive strength.
One problem solution to the same end is to utilize the mechanical fastener elements with which diapers are now often provided. Examples of such solutions are given in EP-A1 -01 321 234 and EP-B1-0 374 730. One drawback with these solutions is that it is necessary to provide the diaper with separate elements that can coact with these mechanical fastener elements, which naturally makes manufacture more difficult and more expensive. Another problem is that positioning of the fastener elements is a sensitive matter, since the fastener tabs that carry the mechanical fastener elements have a limited span.
Another solution is to provide the diaper with an extra sheet of material at one end of the rear side thereof, this sheet being turned over to the other side of the diaper so as to form a pocket in which the dirty diaper can be kept when rolled-up. Examples of such a solution are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,071,414 and SE-B-456 311. This solution makes manufacture of the diaper more difficult and more expensive.
There is therefore a need of designing diapers that can be sealed after use regardless of the design of the fastener elements, without needing additional sheets or components and without making the manufacturing process more difficult to any appreciable extent.
According to the present invention, the aforesaid requirements are met with a diaper that has a front part, a rear part and an intermediate crotch part and which includes an absorbent body or pad that extends in the longitudinal direction of the diaper from its rear part and through the crotch part and into the front part of the diaper and which is spaced from the end-edge of the rear part and/or the front part, said diaper being characterised by a weakening line which extends transversely in that part of the diaper that lies longitudinally outside the absorbent body in the front or rear diaper part, said weakening line terminating short of the side edges of said diaper part. When a dirty diaper is removed and the diaper is torn along the weakening line, that part of the diaper that lies longitudinally outside the weakening line will form a loop which can be threaded over a rolled-up diaper so as to hold the diaper in its rolled-up state.
In one preferred embodiment of the invention, the weakening line terminates at the same distance from respective side edges of the diaper. The weakening line may comprise a row of perforations, a through-penetrating slot or a slit and the diaper includes waist elastic, wherein the weakening line extends within the region of this elastic and at least a part of said waist elastic is located closer to the end-edge of that diaper part in which the weakening line is provided than said weakening line. In one variant, the weakening line has a length that corresponds to the largest width of the absorbent body. In another variant, the end-edges of the absorbent body are spaced from the end-edges of the front part and the rear part of said diaper and a transverse weakening line extends between the end-edge of the diaper and the end-edge of the absorbent body in both the front and the rear diaper parts.
It will be understood that the term diaper as used here includes all types of diaper, such as conventional diapers and pants-like diapers, so-called trainers, and also incontinence protectors and like absorbent articles.